Crime victim's rights champion aims to rid Internet of 'murderabilia'

Published: Sunday, October 08, 2000

Associated Press

Ever wanted to get close to a serial killer?

You could buy a fragment of "Psycho" killer Ed Gein's farmhouse, or a letter from "Son of Sam" killer David Berkowitz. How about a lock of Charles Manson's hair, or dirt from the crawl space where John Wayne Gacy hid the bodies of his victims?

Whether you consider them creepy collectibles, insights into the minds of the truly evil, or symptoms of a sick society, the Internet has brought this underground market into the light of day.

Andy Kahan, who heads a crime victims' rights office for the city of Houston, stumbled on what he calls "murderabilia" a year ago and launched a crusade to wipe it out, state by state, as an affront to crime victims.

California is the first state to respond with a new law, though it has yet to be used.

"Hopefully in my lifetime, we will be able to say we successfully eradicated this industry, and you won't see the word 'murderabilia' appear in Webster's dictionary," said Kahan.

But Darryl Ricketts of South Bend, Ind., who buys and sells murderabilia over the Internet, defends what he calls a hobby that got out of hand.

"From a psychological standpoint, it's a great insight into somebody," Ricketts said. "I have a letter from David Berkowitz. He asks about at what age a child would go to hell. He figures a baby is innocent, but he heard a Florida preacher who said this 14-year-old would go to hell. He's really concerned about it for some reason. To me, it's really fascinating, considering what he did."

Collector Ryan Nicholson, of Vancouver, British Columbia, has spent $45,000 on murderabilia, including a crucifix made in a mental hospital by Ed Gein, the Wisconsin farmer whose gruesome murders inspired "Psycho."

"At first I would say it was a morbid curiosity" that led him to collect, said Nicholson. "Now I would say the attraction is more like analyzing this stuff, really playing the detective role."

People can get a sense of power by owning something from a murderer, said Joseph Tecce, a professor of psychology at Boston College.

"The ultimate control by humans is that of determining life and death," he said. "Murderers are so empowered. They decide the who, when and where of death."

The Internet just made it all more accessible, said Larry Canale, who writes a column for Bidder's Edge, an online auction portal.

The favorite site for dealers is eBay, where typing the phrase "serial killer" on Oct. 5 brought up 201 items, three quarters of them for $10 or less. The most expensive was a scrapbook of newspaper clippings dating from 1957 on Ed Gein. By Saturday, the bidding was up to $152.50.